


Mist

by glacis



Category: X Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-31
Updated: 2010-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-06 21:40:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glacis/pseuds/glacis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An X File case story, wherein a dying man gives Mulder a strange gift that affects his ability to function.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mist

_Mist (1995)_ __

Here, in the bright sunlight, it was nearly impossible to remember the nightmares. His spirit was almost imperceptibly lightened, not restless, for a change. No pressing cases to nibble at his subconscious, a solid four hours of sleep the previous night. Early Spring in bloom all around him. He could even hear birdsong.

It couldn't last.

 

Sounds were muffled in the cramped basement office. Papers lay scattered across the desktop, piles leaning haphazardly around one another. An incipient avalanche. Special Agent Fox Mulder let his eyes drift over the regulated chaos, mentally tying up the loose ends of three cases, storing notes in his head for the next morning's attack of dreaded paperwork. The soft sigh of air from the doorway redirected his gaze, and he smirked at the petite woman leaning against the frame, staring at him thoughtfully.

"Hey, Scully. What's the matter, don't you have a life?" His gentle teasing brought a glimmer of smile to her full lips, and the corner of his own mouth quirked up in response.

"Yeah, I do. And I spend it watching you." She shrugged herself upright, fatigue evident in her stance. "Aren't you ever going home, Mulder?" She raked her glance over his lean length, pausing at the shoulders slumped forward from too many hours of reading casefiles, the rumpled suit jacket tossed carelessly over the back of his chair, his sleeves rolled up and his collar undone. He'd been at the office for fourteen hours, with a brief break from lunch, and he was beginning to look like it. "You're starting to resemble a mole."

He squinted goofily up at her for a moment, and she nearly laughed, before shooting him a stern look. He responded with a half chuckle, hazel eyes narrowing in an unexpected yawn.

"Well, no arguing with the Doctor, I s'pose." He threw his hands up in a gesture of mock surrender, and pushed himself up from the chair. "On my way, just like a good little boy." She muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "that'll be the day" and turned to head down the corridor. He reached behind him and quickly shrugged into the jacket, stuffing his discarded tie in the pocket, and paused on his way out the door. Everything was in order. Looked like a hurricane had hit it. He shut the door firmly and followed his partner out into the night.

 

He didn't know what drove him out of the apartment, but some nights he just couldn't stay indoors. Had to get out, run, chase away the demons, go until his heart pounded in his head loudly enough to drown out all the voices demanding his attention. As usual, he didn't have his gun on him, and for once, he needed it.

The sudden wrenching scream jolted him out of his rhythm, caused his feet to stumble momentarily before instinct kicked in and he swerved into the shadows along the alley wall. Another shadow, long and narrow from the oblique light, disappeared around the far end as he threw himself forward, and he pounded to the end of the building before realizing it was too late. Giving up on the chase, he returned to the victim and knelt beside him. Cursing to himself, Mulder vowed to get a fannypack even if they did look ridiculous and carry his bloody cellphone and gun with him even on a ten minute jog. Pressing his hand gently to the side of the victim's throat, feeling the pulse fade, examining the ragged slit running perpendicular to the windpipe and knowing there was no hope, he gently pressed his other hand along the man's temple. One last human touch, gentle contact to see him into the night. Helplessly he watched the light fade from soft grey eyes, his own sad hazel eyes meshed with the stranger's ... it must be from the lack of oxygen, must be the adrenaline, why would he feel so breathless, his fingertips so warm, must be ... those eyes ...

It must have been only moments before he regained consciousness, because the dead man's blood was still warm and the skin under his fingers was still soft. Mulder gulped, wondering wildly for a moment just what the hell had happened, then shakily pulled himself away from the corpse. Gently, he reached down and closed the dulled grey eyes, feeling an unaccountable sadness at the finality of the gesture. He steadied himself against the wall briefly, then left the alley to cross the dimly lit street in search of a telephone booth. At least he remembered his quarter this time.

 

She couldn't believe it. Not quite eight in the morning and he beat her in *again*. And from the look of him, her instructions to get some rest had gone unheeded. As usual.

"What am I going to have to do to you? Tie you down so you will get some rest?"

He gave her his best wicked smile, not as bright as it usually was. "Sounds interesting, Scully. Your place or mine?"

She successfully stifled a giggle and glared at him. "Did you get *any* sleep last night, Mulder?"

He sighed and shifted restlessly. "Well, I made the mistake of going out jogging-"

"Don't tell me. You got lost and spent the rest of the night walking the streets of Washington DC trying to find your way home."

He ignored her interruption and continued lazily, "-and stumbled, literally, into a murderer in the process of finishing up his work. I wasn't able to catch him, and I wasn't able to help the victim." His eyes were somber, his expression carefully blank. "He died before I could call for assistance."

She settled into her chair and regarded him with concern. "Are you alright?"

He cocked a brow at her. "I wasn't the one who got his throat slit, Scully. Other than nearly passing out from lack of oxygen due to the final sprint into the alley, I was fine. I did, however, spend the next three hours in the local law enforcement headquarters trying to explain to them that I wasn't a crazed killer who sharpened the sole of his running shoe to a razor's edge in order to slaughter a man and then call the police to bring it to their attention. And I am going to start carrying my official identification, my gun, my cellular phone and a copy of my birth certificate everywhere with me -- even into the restroom!"

She was silent for a moment. "Didn't like the local cops, I take it."

His look was answer enough, she didn't need to hear his growled, "No!"

The ringing phone effectively terminated the conversation, and his short "Mulder!" four "yes,sir"'s and one "of course, sir" were enough to have her gathering herself for the inevitable trip to Director Skinner's office. She didn't even have to ask.

 

The corpse was the third in a series, definitely the work of a serial killer, and one with a strange collection pattern. The first corpse had been found minus his left hand, killed by a crushing blow to the windpipe, stripped and dumped into a field of grass along a back road in rural Virginia. The second, another man in his mid-thirties, was missing his right hand. The fresh corpse currently staked out in a different field, less than ten miles from the original crime scene, had had his left leg severed at the kneecap. Whoever had done it had known what they were doing. It was surprisingly difficult to saw through human bone.

Mulder watched his partner carefully examining the wounds on the corpse, and shuddered slightly. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, although lack of sleep was the norm for him, but the breeze seemed unusually cold today. He carefully stepped around what had once been a living being, scanning the area for clues to tell him who could have done this. Trying to see a pattern, some hint of why, that could stop it from happening again. As his eyes drifted over the indentations in the grass his mind ranged freely. *Looks like the body was definitely dumped, not nearly enough blood to have hacked it off here, looks like drag marks where he was half carried to the* Light replaced by darkness. Vivid impressions, not an actual image, more like a strobe light flickering off and on in his head. Soft cool something creeping over the edges of his vision, almost like a mist...

Caught. From behind. Pain, searing through his throat, catching his breath in his chest. Arms heavy as lead, can't get it off me, can't *breathe*. World going grey around him as the pain bit deep, hard into the side of his knee, god it hurt so much, how could he when he was still alive and not even care and he was laughing and oh god it hurt--as his surroundings went grey, the life he saw and the life he was living blending into soft mist as his mind gave in to the grey.

A startled shout from one of the troopers guarding the site brought Scully's head up, in time to see her partner crumple into a heap ten feet away. She didn't remember moving, but she was there, her hand in the collar of his shirt, finding the pulse. His heart was racing, his skin clammy and unnaturally pale. As she opened her mouth to call for the EMTs, his eyes swam open. Pupils dilated, unfocused. A mixture of confusion and terror in the hazel depths. He stared at her for a long moment, and she felt his heart settle into a steadier rhythm under her hand.

"Mulder? Are you alright? What happened?"

His voice was a little huskier than normal, but surprisingly calm. "I don't know, Scully. Why do you have your hand down my shirt? Not that I'm not enjoying it, but-"

"You fainted, Mulder." Now was not the time for his sense of humor. She was worried about him.

"I'm fine, Scully." She didn't look convinced, so he tried a little harder. "Really. I'm fine." He pushed himself into a sitting position, any embarrassment he might have felt at unceremoniously passing out wiped away by the thought of the bizarre impressions he had received before he lost consciousness. "Scully, when you do the autopsy, try and determine if the leg was amputated before he died."

She looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "Why?"

One side of his mouth twisted into a half smile. "Just a hunch."

 

"How did you know?"

He looked up from the reports he was studying to see his partner staring at him from the other side of his desk. "Was I right?"

"Yes. So, how did you know?"

He grimaced. "You don't want to know."

"If I didn't want to know, I wouldn't have asked." She wasn't letting him off the hook. There was no way a cursory examination of the body could have told him that -- if she hadn't been looking, she might have missed the tissue evidence herself.

He set his jaw and sighed. "I saw it."

"How?" No way. "You didn't examine the body closely enough to-"

"No, Scully," he interrupted impatiently, "I *saw* it. Kind of like a vision, or a flashback, superimposed on my field of view. I saw the attacker come at ... him," he wasn't quite ready to tell her all the details. He wasn't quite ready to admit all the details of what he had experienced even to himself. "And I saw that the victim was knocked over, stunned, took a blow directly to the throat-" *can't breathe* Of it's own volition his hand rose to his throat, softly massaging the tender skin over the trachea. "He wasn't dead yet when the murderer began to ... cut off his leg." His voice had dropped and slowed as he continued, until the final words were nearly whispered. Scully stared at him, mesmerized by the pain in his eyes, until the silence caused a chill to chase up her back. She shuddered once, hard, and blinked. Damn Mulder, freaking her out with these ghost stories.

"It's a pattern, right? Physical evidence from the previous two cases indicated that the hands had been severed before the death of the victims and you were making an educated guess." She paused, waiting for his triumphant grin, but he merely stared at her silently. Her voice took on an edge. "Right?"

"No, Scully." His eyes were hooded as he stared back at her, then he nodded and returned to his files. Apparently Scully wasn't ready to hear it either. So he lightened it up a bit. "Just a ... theory."

She didn't like the forced tone. Mulder was hiding something, or trying to. Funny how she always knew. Just as she knew that eventually he would tell her.

He always did.

 

The clues were there, and the killer wasn't nearly as clever as he'd wanted to believe. Traces of skin under the fingernails, a hair, some fabric torn from his shirt. Scully found the physical evidence to sew the case up tight, and Mulder drew a portrait of a sick mind that eventually led them to the killer. But this time there was a difference.

Early morning, and the dream had awakened him with a scream tearing at the back of his throat, his fingers clutching at his right knee, keening in agony. Scrambling for his cellular, not pausing to decipher the odd images still burned into his retinas. Throwing on a jacket, eyes squinting through the darkness of predawn Virginia, he cursed unsteadily to himself as he looked for landmarks he would recognize, even though he had never seen them. Later, he would allow himself to feel the terror hewing at his stomach. Now there was no time to think, only react.

"C'mon, Scully, answer ... pick it up ... damnit, Scully-Scully! I'm in the car, don't have time to explain, have a lead, meet me-"

She noted the directions automatically, pulling on jeans and a sweatshirt around the telephone crimped to her ear, aware even in her half-asleep state of the urgency in her partner's voice. When she arrived, his car was already pulled into the side of a field, angled headlights throwing strange shadows over the long grass and the tall form struggling with a shorter figure in the near distance. Pulling her gun from the holster on the seat beside her, she was out of the car almost before it rolled to a stop, racing over the uneven ground to come to Mulder's aid.

"Federal Agent! Stop or I'll shoot!" The shorter man screamed something then, she couldn't distinguish the words, only the rage behind the howl. He threw Mulder off with a final convulsive jerk, and Dana had a clear shot. As he turned toward her, she saw the glint of metal in his hand and fired on instinct, a clean shot through the upper torso. The man dropped, clutching at the blood flowing across his chest, and tried to stand again, tried to run. Mulder caught him easily, cuffed him securely, and stood back as Scully efficiently wadded the man's shirt into a makeshift bandage. She looked up at him coolly, waiting for an explanation. He avoided her eyes and flipped his cellular up, calling for EMTs to tend to the wounded suspect. Her gaze shot from her partner, studiously ignoring her, to the corpse lying still in the dirt behind him. Another young man, this time missing his lower right leg. Completing the set for the monster she was guarding.

Mulder was going to have to talk to her. This one had been a little too bizarre, even for him.

 

"How did you know?" Softly. Inviting confidence. He wasn't taken in at all.

"I don't know." Warily. Unsure of her reaction. Knowing that he would trust her with the truth if he knew it, but not certain she would believe him if he did. She looked at him, seriously, seeming to look into his soul with clear cerulean eyes. He fought the urge to squirm and looked back at her just as openly, just as deeply. She sighed. Maybe he would talk if she played it his way. Maybe. Mulder was an obstinate clam when he wanted to be.

"What can you tell me?" She settled herself into her chair.

He eyed her guardedly for another moment, then relaxed. At least she looked ready to listen. Belief was probably too much to ask. "I had a dream."

"Another nightmare?"

"No, not my usual." He smiled briefly at her, but his eyes remained solemn. "This one was sort of like the vision that I had at the field when we investigated the third crime scene. There was a kind of mist, grey, started out filmy and gradually became opaque. Then it was as if I became two people. There was a jolt, as if I had been attacked from behind, then this searing pain in my right leg-"

She sat bolt upright.

"-and at that point it was as if the perspective shifted. There was almost a feeling of exhultation, power flowing through me, and I was driving somewhere, with the blood singing in my veins. I could see signs, and landmarks ... the abandoned garage, the split rail fence that bordered the field ... and I was lifting the body out of the trunk of the car and laying it in the field. There was no sense of urgency, no rush to leave, there was all the time I needed..." His voice trailed off. The sensations were so vivid. It was almost as if he were reliving the dream.

Scully watched her partner in morbid fascination, vaguely aware of the shivers raising gooseflesh along her arms and the back of her neck. His voice had lowered until she had a difficult time hearing the end of his recital, and his eyes looked very far away and strangely bemused. She shook her head, hard, trying to dispel the eerie feeling and draw him back from wherever he had gone.

"Mulder!" His eyes snapped open and he finally looked at her directly, holding her gaze as if it was a lifeline. She drew a deep breath and continued. "You just finished the psychological profile on this guy earlier in the day, right?"

He nodded slowly.

"So it could have been in your subconscious when you went to bed. And you haven't been sleeping very well lately, have you." It was more a statement than a question. He nodded again.

"You drew the lines in the pattern, Mulder. You knew what was coming because you'd gotten inside the guy's head. That's all there was to it."

He looked at her in silence, then rested his chin on is clenched fist. "That doesn't explain the original impressions, Scully. When the dream began, I wasn't in the murderer's head, I was in the *victim*'s head. And what about the landmarks?"

She stared at him for a moment. "I don't know, Mulder." The words were hard to get out. "What do you suggest? That you're some kind of psychic? And you're picking up some sort of clues from these people?"

He chuckled drily. "Heaven forbid. As messed up as *my* subconscious is, I'd hate to have to rely on it for anything. But, there is something." He hesitated. He hadn't wanted to bring this up, but he didn't see any way around it. "The guy in the alley. The murder victim I stumbled on the other night." She nodded recognition. "That was the first time it happened."

She wrinkled her brow at him, not understanding what he was saying. "The first time what happened, Mulder?"

"When he died. The ... grey mist or whatever the hell it is came up around my field of vision, and I blacked out for a few seconds. Not very long. Enough to disorient me. And ever since then, I've been getting these dreams, visions, whatever you want to call them."

She regarded him calmly for a long moment. "So, what are you going to do about them?"

"Change my nickname from Spooky to Shaman?" he quipped.

She didn't laugh. "I'd suggest seeing a professional, Mulder."

He sighed. "Been there. Done that. Cribbed the tests."

She shook her head at him and hid her smile. Whatever was causing these new rounds of nightmares, he would deal with them in his own fashion. He always did.

 

Kent, Washington. A nice little town nestled in a valley along the Puget Sound. Trees, water, green grass, peace, quiet, dead teenagers. The last was the reason for the FBI presence in what was normally a sleepy little town.

Mulder looked out across the sparkling wavelets breaking along the sound and sighed. He still wasn't sleeping, and it had been two months since he'd started seeing the Mist, as he'd labelled it in his mind. Scully wasn't asking, since the last time he'd snapped at her for not believing him. He hadn't missed the split second of hurt that had crossed her face before the cool professional mask had slipped back into place, and he'd tried to make it up to her in other ways. Brought her lattes, gave her plenty of space, tried to hold back on the humor and let her work. She wasn't buying it. She kept trying to explain away his dreams, but she couldn't explain the fact that they had caught five killers in eight weeks on the strength of his nightmares. Not that he could even call them that. He'd freaked out the sheriff pretty badly in El Paso three weeks earlier. His mind drifted away and the scene replayed before his eyes.

They'd been standing in the kitchen of a single family home, site of a suspected kidnapping. The Mist had started to creep into his peripheral vision, and he had slipped into it, unable to fight it. The feelings had been so strong, he could almost taste the fear. He'd leaned against the counter, not even hearing Scully questioning the husband, a high official in the DEA and a close friend of a US Senator from Texas ... funny how in cases like that the local police just weren't quite enough. The counter quickly became the only solid spot in his universe, as his vision shifted, and another scene painted itself over the quiet sunlight in the room. Two men, both in light- weight suits, backing a clearly frightened woman against the table. One with a sharp knife to her stomach, the other asking questions, making demands, becoming angry, impatient. She was starting to cry now, beginning to panic. Tried to run. The knife swept up, cut off her escape. The men closed in, and the scene shifted.

Without conscious thought, he followed the Mist into the back yard, through the neat garden into an open patch of ground leading to the street beyond. Some part of his mind was aware that Scully had broken off her questioning and had followed him, but he was too caught up in the events unfolding before him to pay much attention.

A four door car, light blue, New Mexico plates. His mind's eye took in the details even as his body reacted to the events inside the car, the sudden struggle to escape, the slip of the knife into her/his diaphragm, the constriction of blood that made it impossible to breathe. As the Mist obscured his vision and he felt himself slip into unconsciousness, he saw the face of her/his attacker.

Scully barely caught him in time, leaning him against the block wall and holding him there until his vision cleared and he stood shakily on his own. Staring up into his bloodless face and wide, haunted eyes, she lost her temper completely.

"Enough is enough, Mulder! I can't keep running after you when you go haring off like this, and I want to know why you keep nearly passing out every time we go out in the field! What the *hell* is going on?!"

The unexpected obscenity from his usually unflappable partner broke through the haze surrounding Mulder and he focused on her with difficulty. This was *not* going to be easy.

"I saw it, Scully."

She glared at him, but he pressed on. He had to believe that he wasn't losing his mind.

"Two men, light blue four door sedan, license plate PLD 402, they put her in the back of the car. And they knifed her, Scully." He spoke softly but with an urgent undertone in his voice, and she decided to play along with him, see how far he would go.

"Okay, Mulder. What now?"

"Sketch artist." Her disbelieving look was wasted on his back as he hurried to their rental car.

The sketch had been a detailed one. He'd fudged a little when they asked him where he'd gotten the description, although an 'anonymous tip' wasn't really that far off. The plate had checked out, too. Within hours, a local drug lord had lost two of his trusted lieutenants, and the body of the DEA official's wife had been recovered from the warehouse where the thugs had stashed it. Local officials were awed. Mulder was really tired. And Scully didn't know *what* to think.

 

The sound of tires along the gravel broke into his thoughts, and he wearily pulled himself back into the present. In the past few days, the bodies of missing teenagers from Salem, Oregon and Vancouver, British Columbia had been found in the dense undergrowth along the outskirts of Kent. Local law enforcement was unable to come up with anything solid, and markings on the bodies indicated possible cult rituals had been performed on the two boys and the Canadian girl. Scully had turned up little new evidence in the autopsies. Mulder had worked up a psychological profile, but he didn't have the nerve to tell her where some of his most concrete ideas on the killers had come from. He just knew that they had to catch the killers quickly, because the visions were shifting almost faster than he could follow now, waking and sleeping. Sometimes he felt the terror of the victims, in a kind of emotional echo. Other times he felt the needs of the killers, and that was stronger, almost overpowering. And the needs had been growing. With those needs came a sense of urgency that was keeping him up at night. They would kill again. Here. Soon.

He turned to see his partner stepping from their rental car, accompanied by a tall, brunette woman he didn't recognize. As they crossed the gravel toward him, the Mist suddenly came up over the edges of his vision, and he felt himself sway.

She hadn't known what to expect. Her friend Melissa had called her the morning before, feeling very unsettled but unable to pin down the reason. Just that it was something around her sister Dana, probably centered on her partner Fox Mulder. Walker had smiled at the name, but not the emotions coming from her friend. She'd agreed to meet Dana the next day under the pretext of taking her and her partner out to lunch. Seeing the tall, attractive man turning to greet them, she understood Melissa's concern. Something was definitely out of phase.

As the thought completed itself in her mind, she saw him go white and seem to fold up on himself. Dana sprinted to his side and Walker followed, catching him up and helping the shorter woman steady him until he regained his balance. When Walker touched his skin, she nearly screamed. In an instant, she saw his vision, felt the Mist, and knew.

Mulder forced himself to ignore the Mist, trying desperately to stay in the present, unwilling to give in to whatever was trying to take over his mind. As Scully and the stranger led him to a wooden bench along the edge of the rocks bordering the beach, he gulped in air and concentrated on his surroundings, willing himself to stay conscious.

Scully was shocked to see Walker kneel in front of Mulder, reaching out to place her hands on either side of his face, keeping herself at eye level with him. The other woman stared hard into Mulder's eyes, gradually becoming pale at whatever it was she saw in there. Mulder finally shook off whatever had been making him feel faint, and realized that the woman was nearly nose to nose with him.

Walker concentrated fiercely on Mulder, trying to clarify the impressions that she had been receiving from him in waves ever since she had stepped from the car. He seemed to have fought the vision successfully, because the intensity of his fear and disorientation had lessened dramatically. He stared back at her, hazel eyes tired and quizzical. Dana cleared her throat.

"I hate to intrude," she began in a puzzled tone, "but what's going on here?"

"Who are you?" Mulder didn't answer, couldn't answer, Scully. In truth he didn't have the faintest idea what was going on.

"Constance Wind Walker. Friends call me Walker." She slowly drew her hands from his cheeks, and he shivered at the sudden loss of warmth. He hadn't realized that he was cold until she'd removed her touch.

"She's a friend of Melissa's. I thought we'd take a break and get some lunch. Mulder, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Scully," he returned automatically. Walker stared at him a moment longer, fingering a small brass pendant on a knotted chain around her neck. Cocking her head to one side, she swung her gaze from one agent to another, then suddenly smiled.

"I know a great little seafood place not far from here, Salty's on Redondo. How do you feel about shellfish?" The question was addressed to both at once, but only Dana responded.

"Love it." Mulder nodded slightly, and the three turned toward the car.

"So. You're a friend of Melissa's." Scully's look plainly told him to drop it, but Mulder ignored it. There was something about this woman ...

"Um hm. They do wonderful things with shrimp at Salty's. I love to take visitors there. All the fish is fresh, and the chef is just incredible-"

She kept the conversation on neutral ground until after the waiter had brought their plates, then slowly stirred freshly ground pepper into her creamy clam chowder. Time for the truth.

"So tell me, Mulder."

He looked up from his crab, innocently inquiring. Dana looked on impassively, not quite sure what to expect. For one of Melissa's friends, Walker was suspiciously normal.

"How long have you been having the visions?"

Until now. Scully sighed. Mulder choked slightly on the shellfish, then glared at his partner. She shrugged helplessly, disclaiming all prior knowledge.

"Dana didn't say anything. She didn't have to."

"Then how did you know?" His accusatory tone didn't upset her, but it did make her soften her voice. Obviously, this was bothering him more than he wanted to admit.

"I saw the mist." Both her companions started, and she continued smoothly. "I take it from the way you're reacting that you haven't had much experience with empathic episodes." She waited politely for a reply, but Mulder just stared at her. Scully chewed thoughtfully on her dinner roll, wondering just where this would lead.

"Let me give you a little background." She was silent for a moment, gathering her thoughts. Her initial impressions of the other two had been very well defined, so she knew that they would at least listen to her. Belief, on the other hand, would be much harder. At least for Dana. Mulder might be easier, but he was fighting his own demons at the moment, and that was clouding his judgement.

"I am a precognitive empath. I've been receiving emotional impressions since I was a small child. I also see visions of events that haven't yet taken place. Through meditation and discipline I've learned to control these visions, to the extent that they no longer interfere with everyday life." She paused, staring at each in turn. Dana looked skeptical, and Mulder looked reserved. She sighed. "The visions are signalled by the presence of a grey mist. Sound familiar?"

Mulder pushed away his unfinished plate. Staring at the remains of his crabcakes, he sighed softly and forced his eyes up to meet hers. "Actually, yes."

"And they're interfering with your life."

This time it was Dana who answered. "You could say that. He keeps 'seeing' people in their death throes, then passing out."

Mulder was staring down at the tablecloth now. Put like that, it all seemed so farfetched.

"Well, consider yourself lucky. At least it's not possession."

Mulder and Scully looked at her incredulously. She grinned back at them. Then she sobered, and reached out for Mulder's hand.

"May I?" He nodded hesitantly, and she took his hand in hers. Her other hand crept up to touch the pendant around her neck lightly, fingertips caressing the surface almost unconsciously. Her eyes drifted shut, and she let her mind range freely over the man sitting opposite from her.

Breath coming harshly in his lungs. Damp night air chilling the sweat on his body. Feet pounding in a rhythm, at ease with the darkness around him. Noise, foreign, hard, out of place. Looking around, wanting to help, too late. Skin on skin, extending comfort, connection at the moment of death. Power in the touch, a jolt through his body, electricity coursing through paths previously lightly touched. Mind to mind, unlocking a power latent in the survivor, uncontrolled and unknown.

Her eyes popped open, and she looked at him with consternation. "Sheesh! No wonder you're having nightmares."

He tried to draw his hand away from hers, gently, and she held him for a moment before letting him go. "What do you know about my nightmares?" Softly, wanting to hear her explanation.

Her free hand had stopped caressing the pendant and was now holding on to it, as if to draw strength from the warm metal. "The grey- eyed man, the one who died in the alley that night." He tensed his shoulders, and she instinctively patted his hand again. Scully leaned forward, trying to understand what was happening, and Walker smiled reassuringly at her. "He was an empath as well, and a very powerful one. When you touched him, as he was dying, he gave off a sort of electrical charge. It affected you, through the contact of your hand on his body."

"Are you saying he gave Mulder some sort of ... jumpstart?" Scully's skepticism caused Walker to wince slightly. Mulder still didn't say a word, just stared at her, waiting for her to go on.

"In a way, that's exactly what I'm saying. Most people have the ability to read emotions, to some extent. Some are more sensitive than others. And you are a very sensitive person, am I right, Mulder?"

He shrugged one shoulder, as if not willing to commit to an answer. Scully answered for him.

"Sometimes." He half-smiled at her, and she quirked a smile back at him. "Actually, he is, very. And he can ... sense things about people."

"That's not surprising. He is an empath, after all."

That was too much for Mulder. "I am *not* an empath. Ask anyone who knows me."

Walker looked at Scully. Scully looked at Mulder. Mulder looked back and forth between the two of them as if looking for an ally. "Well, I for one have a difficult time believing wholeheartedly in the existence of empaths," Scully finally asserted, ignoring Walker's own disbelieving look. "But Mulder has been coming up with a lot of information from *somewhere* lately."

He settled back in his chair and stared Walker. "Alright. Say for argument's sake that I've had my empathic abilities activated-"

"Forcibly," Walker interjected.

"-what do I do about it? I certainly can't continue the way I am now. I haven't slept enough even for me in the last two months, and if I keep up the way I've been going Scully's not going to be able to find enough evidence to cover the fact that we're solving crimes from images I'm picking up out of the ether. And once word of *that* gets out I won't need to worry about the X-Files -- I'll *be* one."

She bit her lip, glancing from Mulder to Scully and back.

"How do you feel about a little Ritual?"

 

"She's a Witch, Mulder."

"Wiccan, Scully."

"That was a pentagram she was fingering at lunch yesterday."

"Pentacle, Scully. They call them pentacles."

"She's setting up candles and crystals and she's burning *incense*, Mulder."

"I'm seeing visions, Scully, not going blind."

Walker ignored the somewhat incredulous whispers behind her and continued her preparations. As a solitary, it was not often that she allowed outsiders into her Circle. This was an exception, and she was having to concentrate completely in order to block out their confusion and disbelief. At first she had considered only bringing Mulder in, since he was the one immediately affected. Further thought had convinced her to bring in Dana as well. They had talked about what she needed to do and their part in the proceedings for hours the previous day.

Mulder had been hardest to convince, which had surprised her, until she realized that he was also the most threatened by what she was trying to do. The success or failure of the Ritual would in large part be determined by his willingness to believe, and right at the moment his belief was stretched thinly over too many areas. The incident that afternoon had convinced both partners, however, that *something* needed to be done if Mulder was to retain any semblance of authority in the field. One time too many of a senior Special Agent reenacting a ritual murder from the perspective of the victim and then passing out could really destroy his credibility. Luckily, Scully had been able to explain the majority of the scene earlier that day, but her explanation hadn't really been all that convincing. So here they were in her den, willing to try her methods, willing to try anything.

She glanced around the room, mentally listing all the tools she needed, making sure the runes carved into the candles were as they needed to be, adjusting the altar cloth. With one final pat to her athame, she turned to her nervous guests.

"Join me."

Mulder exchanged a glance with Scully, and stepped forward. Dana firmly squelched the feeling that the whole thing was a little ridiculous, and followed her partner.

 

Mulder took a deep breath. He could tell from Scully's wide blue eyes that she had been more impressed by the solemnity and emotion of the Ritual than she wanted to admit. The ceremonial aspects were familiar to him from his studies of alternative religions, but the exact format was unique, one of the more interesting aspects of Wicca being the individuality of each person's Ritual calling. What impressed him the most was the undeniable feeling of power that flowed into and through the Circle surrounding the three of them. He tuned back into Walker's soft, firm voice as she finished the beginning of her speech.

"Lady of Vision, Lord Protector,

Watch over us this night.

Gather us into Your keeping.

And guide us with Your sight."

Mulder felt the gooseflesh rise on his arms, felt Scully shiver, but didn't know where the breeze was coming from. Staring into Walker's face as she lit first one candle, then the other, he found himself drawn by the calmness in her expression. Slowly, his apprehension eased, and he relaxed. This just might work out alright after all.

Scully felt the tension leave Mulder's body, and edged closer to him. She hadn't ever had much patience with Melissa's beliefs, and she wasn't sure about this whole situation, but if Mulder thought that some sort of exorcism was what he needed, she was willing to follow him and make sure he didn't get into even more trouble. Walker's gentle touch on her arm brought her back to the present with a small start.

"Fed of the Earth,

Cleansed by the Water,

Bouyed by the Air,

Tempered by Fire,

Led by the Spirit.

You are the Fire and Earth," she turned to Mulder, "to your Air and Water. Together you complete the Circle."

As they had discussed earlier in the evening, all three turned to face the candles burning steadily on the altar. Mulder, his left hand held by his partner and his right by Walker, found himself mesmerized by the flames. His field of vision began to narrow, and then it began again. The Mist circled up from either side of the cloth, flowing around the tools that Walker had used to cast the Circle, inching toward the three people sitting on the floor. He started to fight it, and Walker squeezed his hand gently.

"No, Fox. Let it in."

He relaxed, and allowed the visions to form.

This time there was no terror, no pain. Walker's face swam hazily in the Mist, a serene expression belying the intent look in her eyes. Funny. When he'd first met her he had been struck by the deep green of her eyes, almost a forest green. Here in this vision, they seemed more blue than green, and then again, no, more of a grey ... the grey of the eyes of the man who had died ... the man who had bequeathed him the visions, a gift that was destroying his life. Scully's hand tightened on his now, a lifeline in the midst of confusion.

The scene changed. He felt the mist begin to dissipate, felt stronger, more in control over what his mind was trying to tell him. Walker's hand felt warm in his, warmer than usual, almost as if an electrical current was running through it. He felt more alive than he had in months, maybe years, aware of every sound and color around him, of the dance of the flame from the candles and the shadows they cast over the walls, the feel of Scully's small hand in his, solid and real and definite, of the tingle from Walker's fingers, her shoulder pressed lightly to his. Over and through all of the other sensations was the feeling that somewhere, deep in his mind, barriers were being gently constructed, as if a flooding stream was being firmly redirected, the controlled flow of energy such a change from all of the stress of the past several weeks. He drew deep within himself to follow the sensation, fascinated and relieved by the difference in his mind.

It could have been minutes or hours before he became aware of the outside world again. The candles had been blown out, and he and Scully were sitting side by side on the floor, leaning back against the couch, fingers still firmly entwined. Walker sat crosslegged opposite of them, staring silently at her own fists, clenched loosely in her lap. Lines of fatigue stretched along the sides of her mouth, and her eyes were dull. He breathed a sigh of relief that they were once again green.

She looked up at the sound of his sigh, and smiled sweetly at them. Scully was sleeping, her head tilted against his shoulder, mouth slightly agape. Mulder grinned down at her for a moment, then settled back to look at Walker.

"Thank you."

She shook her head. "No need. You had to have a hand with this ... it was out of control. I had the practise with controlling it. You are a believer. That helped."

He nodded in return. "You've helped more than you know."

She unfolded her legs and stretched out her back. Grinning at him with a hint of her earlier mischief, she winked, "I know."

 

Scully didn't want to admit that Melissa may have been right, but for once she didn't need to. Mulder did, and it was even harder for him than it would have been for her. He'd called Melissa and thanked her personally for sending Walker to them. After Melissa got over the shock, she'd bent Dana's ear for an hour and a half over what a change there had been in her partner. Dana listened, made agreeable noises, and hung up. Little did Melissa know just what sort of change there had been. On second thought, perhaps she already did. Dana never quite knew with her sister.

Mulder tossed another sunflower seed in his mouth and crunched down hard. There had been an unexpected side effect to the ordeal he had undergone. For the first time in twenty years, his nightmares were under control. They still came, and they still terrified him. But now, when the feeling was spiralling out of bounds, he was able to wake up, not get sucked further into the darkness. And as an added bonus, he had been able to maintain some distance when fleshing out the psychological profiles that had led to the arrest of the pair of killers in Washington State. For once, he hadn't been completely submerged in the minds of the murderers. He smiled at Scully as she settled in behind her desk.

"I finally figured out what Walker gave me in that Circle, Scully."

She lifted a brow at him and waited for the punchline. She didn't expect what she heard.

"Distance." He ignored the file on his lap and looked steadily at his partner. "Perspective, and some much needed distance."

"Distance from what?" She didn't understand.

"The demons, Scully. She gave me a firewall to keep the demons at bay."

He flipped the file open and began to read. She studied his face for a long moment, reassured by the relaxed set of his mouth and the lack of dark circles under his eyes. Maybe this time there was something to all of this hocus pocus. If nothing else, it had set Mulder's mind at ease. And if he was willing to believe, just this once, so was she.

Not that she'd ever admit it to him.

 

the end


End file.
